They watched each other first.Ivy Morse does not date. She maps.She is the ghost who built the rails Ashmere’s underworld runs its money on. Dane Holtz is the man who still uses rooms and hands. Same dark. Same machine. They have used each other’s work for years. They have never shared air.Then he hires her for six hours.The room is cold on purpose. She tells him not to hover. He leaves a glass of water she will not touch and a door that will not quite close. She walks out calling it a job. He photographs the glass after she is gone.That night she taps his phone and tells the empty room it is operational.That night he puts a car on her street and calls it security.Neither of them looks away.What follows is not a courtship. It is maintenance. Numbers vanish. Bookings die. Men who wait by her car do not make it home. Women who touch his sleeve leave the city and never know why. Each one thinks they are protecting an asset. Neither admits they are keeping the asset empty.Until they both show up to handle the same person on the same night.Until the lie cracks.Until the only thing left in the frame is the two of them — and the fact that they were never being hunted by a stranger.They were being kept.Neither Looked AwayA mutual-obsession dark romance. Dual POV. He is the body. She is the wire. The field stays clear.

He was raised to rule an empire built on blood. She was never supposed to become part of it. For years, Alessandro De Luca has been preparing to inherit the most feared criminal empire in the city. To the outside world, he is untouchable—cold, calculating and merciless when loyalty is broken. He has one rule above everything else: Never make a promise you cannot keep. Then a debt from the past comes due. Sofia Moretti has spent her life far from the violence and power of the mafia. She knows nothing about the world Alessandro controls, and she certainly has no intention of becoming involved in it. Until one night changes everything. A murder. A missing ledger. A family secret. And a vow that was made long before Sofia understood what it meant. Suddenly, Sofia becomes the one person Alessandro cannot afford to lose—and the one person he cannot allow to walk away. He tells her that staying beside him is the only way to keep her alive. She believes he is keeping her prisoner. Neither of them expects the attraction that begins to grow between them. But Alessandro's world is built on betrayal. Enemies are everywhere, alliances are temporary, and someone inside his own organization is preparing to destroy everything he has inherited. Sofia soon discovers that Alessandro has been keeping more than one secret from her. The closer she gets to the man behind the reputation, the more dangerous the truth becomes. Because the vow that binds them was never simply about protecting her. It was about what Alessandro promised to do if anyone ever tried to take her from him. In a world where love can become a weakness and loyalty can cost a life, Sofia must decide whether she can trust the man everyone else fears. Alessandro must decide whether he is willing to sacrifice the empire he was born to rule for the woman he was never supposed to love. Some vows are made with words. Others are made with blood.

Elena Rossi has spent three years building a life that no longer waits for an apology. At twenty-six she is a senior interior designer with a sharp eye, a small circle of people she trusts, and a habit of giving too many chances to the ones she should not. She does not expect the past to arrive in her inbox as a project brief. She does not expect the client’s name to be Moretti. Luca Moretti is Matteo’s cousin. He is also the man who stood beside her the night her relationship ended and said almost nothing. Controlled, private, and certain that love is a weakness other people can use, Luca wants a home that feels finished. He asks for Elena by name and calls it a professional decision. It is not that simple. The apartment is empty. The family is not. Matteo still occupies the rooms they do not mention, and the Morettis have always been better at keeping secrets than telling the truth. What begins as a redesign becomes a slow collision of history, loyalty, and a pull neither of them is ready to name. Elena has her own work, her own mornings, her own life. Luca has a company to run and a family table he cannot avoid. Between floor plans and Friday deadlines, a look held too long and a name spoken too late, they will have to decide whether some lines are meant to be respected — or whether the most dangerous thing Elena has ever done is falling in love with the one man her past should have made impossible.